


november 1981

by syari



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Loss, M/M, Marauders' Era, Post-First War with Voldemort, stages of grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 07:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12476328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syari/pseuds/syari
Summary: Remus Lupin is left alone, but he doesn't realize it all at once.





	november 1981

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crescentlunae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crescentlunae/gifts).



> Inspired by Horace Walpole's letter lamenting the loss of his friend, 27 May 1776:
> 
> "I am lamenting myself, not him!-- no, I am lamenting my other self. Half is gone, the other remains solitary. Age and sense will make me bear my affliction with submission and composure-- but forever-- that little forever that remains, I shall miss him."

The first few days aren’t the worst of it. They pass in a fevered haze, like everyone around him is moving so quickly they are like blurs of light and he alone stands still, trapped in a dream, a nightmare of his own making. The few members left of the shattered Order make plans around him, and he follows numbly, throat hoarse like he’s been shouting, and he thinks maybe he ought to have been, only there’s no one left to listen to him.

That’s not the worst of it, but it is the start.

Remus comes home on the fifth day and stands on the threshold of his shared (empty) flat, and for a moment he can’t breathe. His eyes lock onto the cup of tea sitting merrily on the coffee table, steam still curling over the lip, charmed and immutable. There’s no coaster between it and the wood, so when the shabby carpeting is covered in shards of porcelain and light brown stains, the ring it leaves sits in the surface of the table like a knife in a wound.

He wakes that night with a start, wondering when it had gotten so cold before he realizes that he has rolled into the right side of the bed and found the covers empty, pulled up neatly instead of slung low over a sprawled form slumbering like a dog. The window stands open, the breeze from the cloudless night chilling the room. It’s not the same when he pads to the window and shuts it himself. He’s never had to before, not here. He always ran warm with someone to tug at his jumpers and make his heart start beating again.

He’s making tea when his mind drifts to a roguish smile and he only feels his hands shake once the hot liquid spatters them, bringing pain and unwelcome warmth. His breath catches on knives when he sees he’s set out two mugs while he was distracted. He runs his thumb over the raggedly mended cracks in the second cup and wonders if this is what he, too, looks like now.

On the twelfth day, Remus is worn thin from shopkeepers and the tinny cheerfulness of the holidays brought too early this year and the celebration still dancing in the air, as if death were anything to celebrate. As if peace hadn’t been won at a cost to both halves of his soul. He tumbles out of the Floo, back aching, neck tense, mouth already open to complain when his foot scuffs through the dust on the floor and he remembers why he hasn’t gone out in exactly one week.

He gets the notice in the mail. Thinking back, he can’t remember the last time he saw one. In his mind’s eye, he sees the spiderwebs gathering in the corners of his parents’ old, empty vault. He is perversely glad that there’s nothing left of his heart to break. (Not here, at least. He knows part of it is in a small stone room, alone on the vast sea, shattering slowly. He doesn’t know if he hopes it hurts or not.)

On the day he realizes there isn’t going to be anyone to mark the passage of time with ever again, he stands with a single leather case in the hall of his old flat. His fingers twist over the gold lettering, still new, and he locks away another piece of himself with the knowledge of exactly who wrote out _Professor R. J. Lupin_ with such earnestness and belief, laughter on their lips in his mind’s eye, back when the future Dumbledore had promised hadn’t yet crumbled to dust.

(Twelve years later, his soul hugs him like a brother, and he remembers what it’s like to feel warm, just for a little while longer.)


End file.
